Abstract
Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919) passionately defended orthodox Marxism
against the revisionism of Eduard Bernstein (1850-1932) and others.
This, together with her murder in 1919, made her an iconic figure among
later German Communists. Flanked by portraits of Karl Marx (right) and
Ferdinand Lassalle (left), the founders of the German Socialist
movement, Luxemburg addresses a Stuttgart crowd in 1907. One year
earlier, she had published The Mass
Strike, the Political Party, and the Trade Unions
[Massenstreik, Partei und
Gewerkschaften]. In this book, she argued for the necessity of the
violent overthrow of capitalism and emphasized the role of workers in
achieving the revolution. She and Karl Liebknecht, with whom she had
founded the Spartacus League during the First World War, were murdered
during the Communist uprising in Berlin in 1919.